Proud Prison Documents Its Past; An Act of Preservation and an Invitation to Look Inside

In the annals of historic preservation, it is a most unlikely player: a maximum-security state prison teeming with beefy correction officers and their hard-bitten charges.

But the staff and inmates of Eastern New York Correctional Facility, a granite fortress here in the shadow of the Shawangunk Mountains, have commemorated the prison's first 100 years by producing a book, a video, a monument and an official postal cancellation.

And they are not finished. The prison is now fashioning a small museum from an old train station on its grounds. When completed next year, it will display artifacts, photographs and records from the prison's past, as well as its role in New York State's penal history.

Who would want to visit a prison museum? Alcatraz, once a forbidding prison on a rocky island in San Francisco Bay, has long been a tourist attraction, of course, drawing 1.4 million visitors annually. In recent years, it has been joined by a handful of others.

In South Africa, Robben Island off Cape Town, where former President Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, has become a museum, and something of a national shrine. In Dublin, Kilmainham Jail, where most of the revered Irish patriots served time or were executed, has been converted to a museum of the struggle for independence and subsequent civil war. And in the United States, a prison museum was established three years ago in Louisiana on the grounds of the state penitentiary at Angola.

Closer to home, the village housing New York's most famous prison also wants to get into the act. In Ossining, plans are under way for an $8 million museum, Sing Sing Historic Prison, on the perimeter of the correctional facility where Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death.

''People are fascinated by criminal justice and what goes on behind those walls,'' said David L. Miller, superintendent of the Eastern New York Correctional Facility here in Ulster County.

As part of its centennial celebration last year, Eastern held an open house that drew 850 people, mostly local residents. On June 2, the public will again be able to visit Eastern's grounds and to preview the planned museum.

The depot that will house the museum sits on the old Delaware & Hudson Canal. In 1902, the canal was replaced by the New York, Ontario & Western Railway, which is now defunct but had been instrumental in bringing inmates and building materials to the site. The depot is being restored by more than two dozen inmates, armed with 130 gallons of paint stripper.

Eastern's efforts attracted the notice of the Preservation League of New York State, a nonprofit organization that last week gave the prison one of its historic preservation awards. ''It's unusual that they would have a preservation ethic or even be concerned about their heritage,'' said Scott P. Heyl, the Preservation League's president. ''People don't think of prisons in terms of historic sites that should be venerated or protected. But they are cultural resources that have a story to tell, and they contribute to who we are as a people.''

When asked about the prison's history, the administration avoids romanticizing crime or even mentioning notorious alumni. (Twist their arms and staff members will offer two names: Gary McGivern, who was granted clemency after his conviction for murdering a deputy sheriff, and Harold Konigsberg, a mob enforcer.)

But the staff unflinchingly describes the capricious and sometimes brutal practices that went on there, particularly during the prison's decades-long tenure as a so-called Institution for Defective Delinquents, when low-functioning and mentally retarded men, many never convicted of a crime, were held indefinitely. Through the 1920's and most of the 1930's, there was no effort to provide therapy or education to the inmates. Instead, they did manual labor in a prison-run factory and performed military drills using wooden rifles several hours a day, a practice that was said to ''teach instant obedience and self-control.''

Mr. Miller said he was particularly struck by a 1920's newspaper account of a riot in the mess hall, and the hands-on approach of the warden at the time. ''He went into the arsenal, checked out a revolver, leveled it at the most aggressive inmate involved, and that was the end of the disturbance,'' he said. ''When there was an escape, he would personally go after the inmate in his car. I fail miserably by comparison.''

Perhaps one reason the prison administration is so candid about its history is its belief that Eastern is now a much better place.

In 1982, Eastern was the first prison in the state system's history to meet the standards of the American Correctional Association, and its educational and vocational programs earn high marks from watchdog groups that are often critical of the system. Inmates assigned to a Braille transcription unit, for instance, transcribe some 200 books a year into the Braille format for schoolchildren. The prison's 1,440 acres include a dairy farm and a saw mill run with the help of inmates.

There is a special 60-bed unit for blind and deaf inmates, while a medium-security annex offers help to men trying to overcome a history of drug abuse and domestic violence. And among the inmates, who earn only 55 cents to $1.55 a day, a surprising spirit of philanthropy resulted in their recent contribution of $4,000, collected over the course of a year, to a fund benefiting children with cancer.

''It has the reputation of being the most enlightened and well-programmed maximum-security institution for men in the state,'' said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a prison watchdog group.

Still, Mr. Gangi said he was uneasy with Eastern's plans for a museum and the introduction of tourism to the prison experience, particularly because Eastern is so atypical. ''Prisons are essentially instruments of punishment and, in my judgment, are often inherently brutal institutions,'' Mr. Gangi said. ''To the extent that Eastern is a departure from all of that, people could easily slip into thinking, 'Well, this isn't so bad, this is a viable public institution.' ''

Whatever impression the history project here leaves on the public, the process of pulling it all together over the last five years has engrossed the staff and inmates.

Jeff Rubin, a correction counselor who did research and helped plan the station restoration, gleaned information and old photos from local libraries, postcard clubs, the O & W Railway Historical Society and the New York State Library. He won a federal grant of $129,000 for the prison to restore the train station. Mr. Rubin also helped to get the station listed on both the state and national historic registers.

''You know how in life you feel you could have had another calling?'' Mr. Rubin said. ''I've always had a hankering for local history.''

The prison's neighbors have also aided the museum's cause. The daughter of a past prison superintendent donated a fat scrapbook of newspaper clippings dating from the 1920's, as well as reels of film capturing prison scenes from the 1930's and 40's. Another resident, a retired employee, contributed artifacts: two hefty cell-door locks from the prison's earliest days.

But it is the inmates who seem to have derived the greatest release from their involvement. Peter Gripaldi, a 58-year-old wood worker who has served seven and a half years for attempted murder, made a meticulous model of the train station, based on original blueprints. It required 12,476 pieces, he noted, and took 178 days, 1,768 hours and 116 passes, which allowed for easier movement within the prison. ''Not that I was counting,'' he said. ''There was an incredible amount of freedom, if you will,'' Mr. Gripaldi added. ''The walls sort of disappeared.''